DEC 10 - NEW YEARS MIXER

We’re now pushing 2012 and the activities keep rolling right along! Coltrane is now 4 ½ months old.  It is amazing how fast he’s grown and how smart he already is.  It will be so strange as he grows to begin speaking with him and watching him grow into his own person.  This whole experience has really made me appreciate everything that my parents did for me!  Amber and I are tying the knot on December 29th in front of family then we’re having a bit of a “mixer” at our place on New Years!  Ray & family will be out this year again from Tokyo for Christmas and New Years so their presence should make events interesting! Things with Distinct Broadcasting, things are rolling along well.  3 sound libraries are now online and are starting to sell as word gets out!  We’re also putting together a great team of V.O. artists, ready to tackle 2012.  Red FM has been rolling along well too, it looks like the bad economic times of 2011 are far behind us. 

OCT 24 - CRYING BABIES!

Coltrane is now 2 months old.   Anyone who has a child knows that your life changes quite dramatically when taking care of a baby.  We’ve developed routines to deal with late night crying, feeding and diaper changes but every day still proves to be a learning process!  Nothing beats the feeling of seeing your child everyday after you’ve been gone for hours at work!  Most of my activities have taken a back seat to my current situation however I still manage to squeeze the odd run in a few times a week!  I tried to sell a house over the last few months but did not have a lot of success so I took it off the market and found someone to rent it.  We are now doing a $10,000 giveaway at Red FM.  Planning these contests is not too challenging however planning multiple contests over the course of years and keeping them fresh and interesting from one to the next is!  Just when you think you’ve discovered a formula that is successful, you have to change it up to keep it interesting.  I am nearly finished developing my loop library for electronic musicians.  I am in contact with a distribution company that is interested in it.  I hope that all goes well and my library gets scooped up by 1000’s of eager producers!  Oh!  Coltrane is crying again, gotta go!

AUG 10 - COLTRANE

On Saturday, August 6th, 2011 @ 851am, my beautiful boy Coltrane entered the world and our lives.  Amber and I entered the hospital on Friday around 3am after her water broke.  They sent us home for rest but by noon had informed us that we needed to come back and formally check into the hospital.  Amber was put onto an IV around 3pm and by 6pm started to feel the contractions.  It was a long night; anyone who has experienced birth needs no further explanation! It was determined that Amber would not easily give birth and by 8am, we were brought to the operating room for a c-section.  The procedure freaked Amber out but at that point, the baby needed to get out!  They prepped Amber, and then I was allowed into the room to comfort her.  Moments before Coltrane was brought into the world, they told me to stand up so that I could watch it happen.  Wow!  Within moments, they handed her over to Amber and began fixing her up.  The feeling was indescribable, what can I say!  3 days of recovery in the hospital and now we’re home, all 3.5 of us!  (.5 being out pug Rodney!)  Life is wonderful; I just wish that sleep was equally as great! 

His full name is Coltrane Sydney Locker Pedersen, we anticipate calling him Col (without the E) while he’s young.  Once he’s a Jazz superstar, he can go back to his full first name if he wants!!  Life is wonderful; I have had an empty hole in my life filled that I never knew existed! 

JUL 08 - 3 WEEKS

Getting very close to the big day, 3 weeks in fact.  At this point we have to accept that things can happen early or late so being prepared is key!  Exciting! The Red FM Walk & Run is this Sunday.  Registration was slow at first but now it is coming along with similar numbers as last year.  We broadcast from Bear Creek Park on Wednesday and had so much success with registrations that we will do it again tonight.  (Rain, rain go away!!)  The whole event is great but it is a heck of a lot of work, Monday can’t get here soon enough!  I have been slowly mixing 8 tracks for my mother’s gospel band and feel like there is just not enough time in the day to get it done faster!  I begin track 7 today and will hopefully have the last track (8) finished next week.  Producing material for radio is so much easier for my laptop to handle, I’m finding that with the band I have 12-16 tracks, each 3 minutes long with multiple insert effects, sends, edits and the like.  My Macbook Pro starts to chug a bit when I have too many things going on in a session!  (Maybe it’s time for a nice upgrade??!)  One final gripe, this about the weather…  Can we not have a consistent period of sunshine?  It’s bloody July for god’s sake!

MAY 31 - LOST MY CAT 

Although it is technically May, it is the last day of the month so it has been nearly 2 months since I made an entry! We have finally moved into our place, down to random boxes at this point. We’re also just 8 weeks away from meeting our new guy, I’m pretty sure I’ve settled on the name but I think I will keep it from the World until he arrives! We gave away the car at Red FM; a super nice guy won who had moved here from India in only the last year. It’s nice to give it to someone who needs it and he was pretty stoked! We did not end up broadcasting the Canucks playoff games this year. We were told that there would be a chance that if the Canucks made it to the finals (which they have), that we may not be able to maintain our broadcasting spot within the building. We decided that for the price, it would not make sense to begin the broadcasts if only to stop them at the most important time. I could have seen it all with my own eyes but we will watch faithfully on TV anyway! I’m not sure if I mentioned this however I lost my cat on Christmas day last year. Kind of a crappy day for your pet to not come home, not that any other day would be better! Amber had a pug when we met and of course, now he has become mine as well, it is so nice to have the little pest around! I haven’t had a dog since I was a boy so although certainly different from a cat, it’s nice to have a pet around. The Distinct Broadcasting website has been redesigned and is not online at www.distinctbroadcasting.com There will always be small changes to be made but it has really come along nicely. I am still aiming at a formal 2012 company launch. 2 radio imaging libraries are now complete and for sale, the loop library “Robotic Percussion” should be complete by the end of summer.

APR 20 - HAWAII 5.0

Maui came and went. What an amazing trip. We managed to pack in a snorkeling trip, a luau, modern dance, shopping, swimming and sun burning! I love Hawaii so much and will surely be back there countless times in the future! The only down side to the trip was that I was unable to get decent bird recordings. We couldn’t find a good spot that didn’t have the sound of distant cars in the background. I am now regularly feeling the baby kick, it’s so amazing! Amber has discovered that if she eats anything spicy, the baby starts break dancing in her belly! Amber loves spice but she’s going to drop the spices for the next few months, as sleep seems to be more appealing to her! I flew to Winnipeg last weekend to record my mother’s gospel band “The Hands of Love”. I brought out two massive bags of gear including mics, an 8-channel interface and loads of cables. We started around noon on Saturday and recording till 11pm that night. The following day we did all of our vocal overdubs and managed to finish within about 4 hours. It was a really great time, the whole band was right into it and everyone was a good player and singer so recording them was really a pleasure. Now to the mixing stage and I would like to complete one full song per week so that I don’t keep them hanging on too long! No time to visit friends on this trip which was too bad, next time! Finally, Red FM is chugging along nicely these days. Vaisakhi and the car giveaway are right around the corner, the whole contest seems to be moving along efficiently this year. We have an amazing idea for the final giveaway on April 23rd. (Top secret stuff!)

MAR 07 - SAMPLE PACKS

The car giveaway is in full swing at Red FM. We managed to fill all of our weekends with live broadcasts and found 2 diamond sponsors for the contest so now it is just a matter of managing the details and determining a winner! The radio station is really picking up again; we managed to deal with the slow down of January. Distinct Broadcasting (www.distinctbroadcasting.com) developing fast. The 2 sound effects libraries are nearing completion. I have already completed a promotional demo for “Robotic Percussion” which you can listen to here. I will also have a sample pack available on the site sometime in the next month or so. I have contacted a few developers however If I can manage to market the package successfully myself, then I think that I would prefer to do that rather than pay someone else to do it for me. Hopefully the sample packs will provide enough material to generate interest among potential customers. I will be flying to Maui on Thursday next week for a 4-day holiday. Amber and I decided that we needed to take a few days off before we jump into this whole parenthood thing! I truly love Hawaii, it’s so beautiful and just one short flight away! The very best bird recordings that I’ve ever made were in Hawaii so I anticipate a lot of nature recordings. Amber has never seen Hawaii so I can’t wait to watch her discover such a beautiful place too! I was supposed to head over the Tokyo again end of April for my brother’s 40th birthday party. As we all know, Japan has suffered some terrible natural disasters over the last week thus I’m not sure that I will travel there again for some time. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I consider Japan as my 2nd home. I always say that If I couldn’t live in Canada, I would move to Japan. Japan and its people are truly beautiful and my heart goes out to everyone who lives in Japan and all those affected. Be strong Japan, you are beautiful and we love you.

FEB 13 - HALF WAY!

Life is rolling along at an incredible pace! We are now at 17 weeks, virtually the half way mark. Needless to say that being a father is constantly on my mind however I am truly happy about it and look forward to every moment of the rest of my life as a dad! Amber and I decided to move upstairs in my house and begin the tedious process of preparing the house however we were then offered the opportunity to live in a home that her parents own in South Surrey. At present I no longer have tenants and am now back to finding new ones. I would have preferred to not be in this situation however; I think that in the long run, we will be happier in South Surrey. My radio-imaging library is really coming along now. I anticipate selling the library on-line in 2012. Working on all of the sound design led me on an alternate path as well, I will also be releasing a “Robotic Percussion” sample CD for electronic music producers in 2012. The material is really building up, organizing and mastering it is the next step, then of course comes the marketing aspect. Distinct Broadcasting is becoming reality. I recorded Amber singing for radio station ID’s at Red FM and we discovered that we are able to co-produce really tight material together so as part of the Distinct Broadcasting portfolio, we will offering that service as well. Red FM was pretty quiet over January, which was a nice change of pace! We celebrated our 5th anniversary this year with a function for staff and family. It’s amazing how quickly time seems to have passed; I have honestly enjoyed working at Red FM from day one. We have Vaisakhi coming up in April so we are ironing out the details for our giveaway. We are debating another car or the equivalent in a cash giveaway. I have also starting the preliminary arrangements for the 6th annual Red FM run, the day is set for Sunday, July 10th.

JAN 08 - ALASKA KING CRAB

I thought it might be a challenge to top my last set of posts from India but I think I’ve done it! Christmas and New Years came and went. On Christmas Eve, we had our annual Pedersen get together. This year, our parents were in Tokyo visiting my brother however Lana and I still put on the gala event. Since my parent’s house was vacant, we decided to invite everyone over there instead of messing our own houses. It felt just like high school, parent out of town and the kids through a party. Only these days, we’re all legal, have jobs and kids and we always clean up before going to bed! On Christmas day, my partner Amber and I went to her parent’s house in Langley. Amber’s mother Judy is an incredible cook. INCREDIBLE! Christmas day was really fun, highlighted by George, the guest from next door. Hope he made his walk home safely. New Year’s Eve was also spent at Amber’s parent’s house and again we had an incredible feast of escargot, tiger prawns, Alaska King Crab, lobster, steak, Jonny Walker Green Label, and on and on! Why so much time with Amber’s parents you ask? Well, here’s the news that will top the India trip; we’re expecting! It’s probably safe enough to start telling people now, as we’re into our 12th week so what better way than posting it on the Internet for the world to see! Life is crazy and wonderful all at the same time!